Belgium. Bike racing. 19-fucking-87.

How the hell did they pick me to drive? Oh, yeah — I was from California, so I must be an expert driver, so they convinced me to rent the car at the airport. The airport gave these Irish drunks fits, because it wasn’t in Brussels but in some ‘suburb’ called Zaventem. Compared to any city in California, Brussels was was a fairly small city, almost a sprout. It only had million people. But the Paddies stared out the window like a Jayhawk farmer on his first trip to New York City. I turned on the wipers because, yeah, it was raining. DidI even need to add that? I fuggin said I was in Belgium.

It was March 12 and still winter, the northern Euro winter that ends sometime in August for a week or two. “What the fuck am I doing her?” I wondered.

One thing these Irish lads were good for was the money. They paid their share of the car rental and gas, and then some. Insurance? These were bike racers.

I pushed the envelope and rented an Audi 400. It was six years old, and easily big enough for four men who were used to cramming themselves into the crevices of econoboxes. The Audi cost $16 a day instead of $11 for the VW Golf, but we were living large.

Seamus had a decrepit PreAlpina rack, and we shipped it as baggage, tied together with four bungees. Ot came rolling down the luggage belt at Zaventem, and from the stares and glares, we might as well have been bringing in an elephant. The bikes came next, in cordura nylon cases, and shit howdy, they looked Euro-fesh.

The Paddies checked out the bikes, put on the pedals, seats and bars while I went off to the car rental counter, speaking English to a girl who countered in Flemish. Flemish was hard to understand, unless you were fluent gargling marbles. Fortunately, with a couple of pound notes as a bribe, I was whisked off to the Audi. I drove it around to the curb and Seamus whipped out a spanner and put the rack on. I could actually see the paint chip from the roof rails as he defaced it. I was about to say something, but I got ahold of myself … another day maybe … not.

The bikes were not damaged. They went up top, along with a spare pair of wheels and the tool box. It was fucking cold outside, at least 20 degrees colder than when we left Dublin, and it was starting to rain harder. Belgium in March is about as pleasant as Belgium in September, October, November, December, January, February, April, and June, which is to say it’s a wet, frozen shithole. Oh, and it’s great for bike racing, but only if you actually know how to race your bike.

Our destination was a little town called Tienen, but all the towns in Belgium are little, and cold, and wet, and cobbled, and this was where the race started the following day at noon. Tommy said that if I was going to get a ‘big’ car, I should have hired a Mercedes, and that the Audi was a ‘girl’s car.’ I told him to bugger off. After six months, I already knew how to speak English, if that’s what they speak in Ireland.

I had no qualms about driving a girl’s car, of course. When I was just out of college, I had a 1979 Peugeot 504 finished in a color the French charitably called “Hibiscus Pearl,” even though it was actually a dirty shade of white. This was a pure girl’s car, verified every time some guy in a pickup would pull up next to me and stare inside, hoping to see some hot North County chick coming home from the gym. Instead, he got me, which taught him a crucial lesson: if you want to ogle women in cars, stick to the Fiats.

But most bike racers didn’t mind driving a girl’s car, or getting ferried in a girl’s car. Some riders, mainly like Boyer, wanted their cars to be manly and tough, so they bought a pickup or had their rich girlfriend drive them around in a Mercedes. I liked the guys who went to races in a pickup, jacked up so high off the ground that no one under six feet could get inside the cab, because nothing said “manly” like cruising to the bike race in tight wool shorts and a 4-wheel drive mudder.

We got to the hotel, which was really a cave with a roof. For Seamus and Tommy the mere thought of a night away from home was like heaven to them. They had no idea how to travel. The room was on the third floor, we walked up the stairs, and the beds were maybe six feet long, so I opted for the floor and left the other three to fight over which two got the “beds.” I was asleep by ten, and they were still bickering.

At 9:00 AM I could only think “Holy mother of god, I am hungover and haven’t had anything to drink in a month.” I went downstairs and out the door, relishing the quiet and the fresh air, then walked over to a little café and asked for breakfast. One thing you needed to know is that they didn’t eat waffles in Belgium for breakfast. They ate cheese, that stinky white soft cheese that masquerades as Brie, but is really from an unknown animal of unknown origin.

I also got some coarse wheat bread, honey, and jam. I ate everything I could and washed it down with coffee, a universal beverage that all countries have in some fashion or another. After I tipped the waiter, he looked at me as if I was an idiot who didn’t know how to count. “That’s the tip, asshole,” I wanted to say, but I didn’t.

I went home to the wretched room and arrived to find the others feasting on breakfast with bread and crackers and sausage and all sorts of vile shit spread all over the room and spilled upon the floor. Obviously, they had brought food with them, because, of course, they were poverty stricken bike racers. It smelled so bad in there, like four bike racers and four bikes had spent a night in a room designed for one clean person.

Dressed, we rolled out at 11:30, signed in, and warmed up. I was back at the start after finishing one of three 45 km laps, already shelled two minutes into the race. I stopped and was greeted with what John Muir would have called “The Enormity of Silence.” They just couldn’t fathom why I was there and not back in my luxurious hotel if I had been so badly dropped. I reached over onto the table where the organizers had a microphone, and grabbed a pastry and a cup of coffee. I rode off. I figured that if I had to be miserable for three more hours, at least I was going to enjoy a cup of coffee and a sugar bomb. They said nothing and looked at me like I was from Mars.

We had more road races Saturday and Sunday, and you can fill in the blanks. The rest of the trip was miserable, cold, wet, and I got punched out the back about a third of the way into every race. They went fast there, and it was really hard to sit in when it was 40 degrees and sleeting.

No one else was anything more than pack filler. But we were rollin’ it, baby, and nobody quit, at least until we finally gave up.